Packet network based emergency backup telephone system

ABSTRACT

In an emergency backup telephone system, members of an enterprise use their personal computers to log into an emergency communications web page. Upon logging in, software that enables the personal computer to act as a webphone is automatically downloaded. This software allows a person to initiate a call from personal computer to a conventional PSTN number destination using a PSTN gateway, or to another party&#39;s computer at a specified URL using VoIP telephony. Upon logging in, an authoritative index of employees reachable via the backup system updated to include information such as a phone number and/or IP address where the member can be reached in order to allow calls originating from the PSTN to be routed to the member&#39;s computer. The index is made available to other members of the enterprise via the enterprise&#39;s intranet, and, in some embodiments, to the public via a web page on the internet and/or email.

The present application is a continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 10/288,463 filed Nov. 6, 2002, now allowed, which claims thebenefit of previously filed U.S. provisional application Ser. No.60/331,013, filed Nov. 6, 2001, the contents of which are herebyincorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND

1. Field

The invention is related generally to telephony and more particularly toan emergency backup telephone system that utilizes packet switchednetworks in addition to or in place of circuit switched networks.

2. Discussion of the Background

As highlighted by recent terrorist attacks on major cities, the publicswitched telephone network and cellular networks are vulnerable tosignificant service disruptions and discontinuities when large-scaledisasters destroy key facilities. In contrast, Internet-basedcommunications leverage the failure-resistant architecture of theInternet, thereby achieving higher reliability and survivability underadverse conditions.

Numerous products enable end users to communicate with others usingvoice over internet protocol (VOIP) technology. While these productsserve various consumer and internet commerce functions, none areengineered to provide features needed for enterprises to providecontinuity of operations in emergency situations. These features includemeans for dynamically creating or updating an authoritative index ofmembers of the enterprise (e.g., employees) reachable using backuptelecommunications systems, methods for routing calls from the publicswitched telephone network (PSTN) to these members, methods for routingcalls within the enterprise to these members, and methods for enablingoutside parties to reach these members using either Internet-connectedcomputing devices or portions of the PSTN that are in working order.

SUMMARY

The invention meets the foregoing need to a great extent by providing amethod and process for both inbound and outbound telecommunicationsservices for enterprises such as businesses and other organizations onan emergency basis, leveraging the internet to provide rapid startup,continuity of operations, and the features needed for internal andexternal communications requirements of the enterprise. The inventionincludes processes and methods for pre-establishing backup telephoneservice accounts, enabling authorized users to identify themselves tothis system during an emergency or communications failure, dynamicallycreating and/or updating an authoritative index of members reachableusing backup telecommunications systems, providing means for authorizedusers/members to place and receive telephone calls via the world wideweb, providing means for parties to reach members via the publicswitched telephone network and/or the internet, and providing means forauthorized members to connect with parties utilizing functioning partsof the PSTN.

In one aspect of the invention, members of an enterprise ororganization, such as employees of a corporation, use their personalcomputers to log into an emergency communications web page. Upon loggingin, software that enables the personal computer to act as a webphone isautomatically downloaded. This software allows a person to initiate acall from personal computer to a conventional PSTN number destinationusing a PSTN gateway, or to another party's computer at a specified URL(uniform resource locator), SIP (session initiation protocol)destination, or H.323 alias ID, using VoIP telephony. Upon logging in,an authoritative index of employees reachable via the backup system isalso updated to include information such as a phone number or a URL, SIPdestination or H.323 alias ID where the member can be reached in orderto allow calls originating from the PSTN to be routed to the member. Theindex is made available to other members of the enterprise via theenterprise's intranet, and, in some embodiments, to the public via a webpage on the internet and/or via email.

In the event the member only specifies a PSTN extension on which he orshe can be reached, or designates the PSTN extension as a preferreddestination for incoming calls, an incoming call is forwarded to thePSTN using conventional call forwarding techniques. In the event thatthe member only specifies a URL to which VoIP call are to be directed ordesignates the URL, SIP destination or H.323 alias ID as a preferreddestination for incoming calls (which may occur, for example, when themember is working from home and has only a single PSTN phone line whichmuch be used for his or her internet connection, or when the member'sphone lines are down but he has an internet connection via a cablemodem), a PSTN gateway is used to bridge the incoming call from the PSTNto the internet. In one embodiment of the invention, one of a block ofnumbers serviced by a PSTN gateway is assigned to the member's URL, SIPdestination or H.323 alias ID such that when an incoming call directedtoward that number is received by the PSTN gateway, the PSTN gatewayautomatically bridges the call to the URL, SIP destination or H.323alias ID associated with the member to whom that number has beenassigned. In another embodiment, a single PSTN telephone number isprovided to all parties, and an interactive directory that allows a userto enter, for example, the first three or four letters of the name ofthe desired member is made available to the caller to specify the memberto whom they wish to speak. Once the member is identified by the caller,a PSTN-to-VoIP call is bridged via the PSTN gateway.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A more complete appreciation of the invention and many of the attendantfeatures and advantages thereof will be readily obtained as the samebecome better understood by reference to the following detaileddescription when considered in connection with the accompanyingdrawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a hardware block diagram of an emergency backup telephonesystem according to an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 2 is a screen shot showing a user interface for an internettelephony application according to an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a screen shot of a web voice card for notifying a party of abackup public switched telephone number and a backup URL where anemployee can be reached in an emergency according to an embodiment ofthe invention.

FIG. 4 is a screen shot of an emergency communications services web siteaccording to an embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present invention will be discussed with reference to preferredembodiments of emergency backup communications systems. Specificdetails, such as types of switches and gateways, and methods forpublishing emergency telephone numbers, are set forth in order toprovide a thorough understanding of the present invention. The preferredembodiments discussed herein should not be understood to limit theinvention. Furthermore, for ease of understanding, certain method stepsare delineated as separate steps; however, these steps should not beconstrued as necessarily distinct nor order dependent in theirperformance.

The invention is believed to be particularly applicable to a companywith employees and will therefore be discussed in that context. However,it should be understood that the invention is not limited to companiesbut rather is applicable to many different kinds of enterprises.

In a preferred embodiment, a corporate telecommunications manager or asales agent enrolls a company for an emergency backup telephone serviceusing a Web-based enrollment process. This process enables the companyto establish an account for such services and to create a customizableemergency communications web page for its employees to use in the eventemergency communications services are required. At the company's option,headsets or handsets that plug into personal computers or similarcomputing devices are distributed to employees to assure that theircomputers are ready to support internet based voice communications.

There are many different situations in which emergencytelecommunications services might be required. One example of such ascenario is a natural disaster or terrorist incident in which thecompany's physical plant, including its telecommunications equipment, isdestroyed. In this situation, employees may be asked to work from homeor from a temporary, remote location away from the plant. Such employeesmay have only a single telephone line available to them with which theycan take and place telephone calls and/or access the internet via amodem connection. Another example is the destruction of a PSTN localoffice serving the enterprise.

An example of an emergency backup telephone system 100 is illustrated inFIG. 1. To assure continuity of operations, the system 100 includesmultiple proxy servers, gateway servers, and packet based networks sothat single points of failure outside any local area network connectingcomponents of the system 100 are eliminated. The system 100 includes webservers 120 connected to the internet 110. Storage devices 122, whichstore redundant databases that include the index of employees registeredwith the system 100 in an emergency, are connected to the web servers120. Also connected to the internet 110 is an employee computer 131, athird party computer 140, and a plurality of proxy servers/mediagateways 170. A PSTN switch 153 is connected to the media gateways 170.A telephone 132 corresponding to an employee with PSTN service, and aconventional phone 151 and a cell phone 152 corresponding to thirdparties with PSTN service are connected to the switch 153. It should beunderstood that the switch 153 in FIG. 1 forms part of the system 100and that corresponding switches and other equipment (e.g., basestations) that connect the phones 132, 151 and cell phone 152 to thesystem 100 are not shown in FIG. 1 for the sake of simplicity. It shouldbe further understood that the employee computer 131 and the employeetelephone 132 may or may not be associated with the same employee.

In the event of a communications disruption, employees would access theemergency communications web page (such as the web page shown in FIG. 4)hosted on servers 120 with their personal computers by entering fromtheir company's intranet site (which may or may not be hosted on theservers 120). This approach would enable the company to validate theemployee's identity using their standard network access authenticationapproaches. The information required to implement the aforementionedauthentication approaches (e.g., the employee's user name and password)may also be stored on the server 120 in advance in case the companyintranet is unavailable.

At the web site, the employee initiates emergency communicationsservices by registering online with a proxy server 170 that correlatesthe employee's internet address with their (non-functioning) businesstelephone extension number(s). The registration process willautomatically update (or in some cases, create) an index of employeesreachable using the emergency backup system, providing bothremotely-located PSTN extensions and IP addresses or otherInternet-based locator information (such as SIP destinations) to enablerouting of calls originating from either the Internet or the PSTN to theemployees using the system. The employee index is preferably stored inredundant databases 122. At this time, a VOIP application (software thatenables a computer to act as an Internet telephone in a manner wellknown in the art), for example the SOFTPHONE™ application available fromthe assignee of the present application, eStara, Inc, is automaticallydownloaded to the employee's personal computer if necessary. An exampleof a SOFTPHONE™ user interface is illustrated in FIG. 2.

Once registered, the employee initializes the VOIP application on theirPC 131. The VOIP application uses VOIP protocols to provide outboundvoice communications services based on user inputs and/or the use of anaddress book on the computer 131. Outbound PSTN calls, such as calls toa conventional phone 151 or cell phone 152 may be established throughthe use of media gateways 170 in a manner well known in the art.Outbound VoIP calls can be made to other PCs 140 (including PCscorresponding to third parties or other employees) equipped withcompatible VOIP applications using direct computer-to-computer mediastreaming protocols. For those employees with available PSTN service,calls from PSTN phones 132 to other PSTN phones 151, 152 can be routedthrough switch 153 or through any other PSTN switch (not shown inFIG. 1) available to the employee.

The system 100 can also support incoming calls from other employeesand/or third parties. In this situation, it may be necessary ordesirable to notify other employees and/or third parties of the PSTNextension and/or URL, SIP destination or H.323 alias ID at which theemployee can be reached. The user employees may communicate thisinformation through e-mail or web pages (which may be hosted on webservers 120) to potential callers with an e-mail or web page containinga web voice link. Such a link, as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,026,087,6,212,192 (licensed by the applicant) and/or U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 09/771,993 would initiate the download of a thin-client voiceapplication capable of enabling the caller's multimedia computing deviceto establish a voice connection directly to the employee's VOIPapplication, or permit the caller to select a telephone callback mode ifthe PSTN is available at the caller's site. An exemplary web voice card,which may be included in an email, containing a link that automaticallyestablishes VoIP communications from the recipient's PC to the PC of thesender of the email is illustrated in FIG. 3.

Inbound communications originating from compatible VOIP applications(such as communications from other employees of the company using theemergency communications system) that are directed toward an employee PC131 are accommodated with direct computer to computer media streamingprotocols supported by the VOIP application. Inbound VoIP communicationsoriginating from a third party PC 140 that are directed toward anemployee PSTN extension are handled through a PSTN gateway 170 under thecontrol of call servers 160 in a manner similar to that described in theaforementioned U.S. patents and in FIGS. 10 and 11 and the accompanyingtext of the aforementioned co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No.09/771,993, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by referenceherein. In some embodiments, callback (whereby a user clicks on a link,which causes a message to be sent to the employee computer 131 with aphone number of a PSTN extension at which the party associated with PC140 wishes to receive a PSTN phone call) is available in addition to orin place of a pure VoIP call.

Inbound communications directed toward an employee's conventional PSTNphone 132 are also supported. Inbound communications originating from aconventional PSTN phone 151 or a cell phone 152 may be directed via theswitch 153 (or any other PSTN switch) to the employee's phone 132 in theconventional manner or by using call forwarding.

Inbound communications directed toward an employee's PC 131 are likewisesupported. In one embodiment, a single employee is associated with asingle telephone number from a block of telephone numbers associatedwith one or more gateways 170. This unique telephone number is what isdisplayed on the website hosted by server 120 and/or in the email(and/or the voice web card) sent to the calling party. When an incomingPSTN call is received on switch 153, the call is directed to the gateway170 (which is preferably a SIP gateway), which bridges the PSTN call toa VoIP call at the URL, SIP destination or H.323 alias ID associatedwith the employee that has been assigned to the telephone number towhich the incoming call has been directed.

A second way in which an incoming PSTN call may be directed to anemployee's PC 131 is through the use of an interactive voice responsesystem (IVR), under the control of a proxy server associated withgateway 170, that allows the incoming caller to specify the employeewith whom they wish to speak. Such an embodiment is advantageous in thatit does not require the maintenance of a block of telephone numbers(which can be expensive) for use in an emergency situation. Thistechnique allows incoming calls to be directed toward a single telephonenumber. In one embodiment, when such a call is received, the IVRprovides the caller with the option of entering the letters of thedesired employee's name, such as by pressing the key associated withthat letter. Thus, a caller wishing to speak with employee Jones wouldpress the 5, 6, 6, 3 and 7 keys on their keypad to specify employeeJones. The IVR, which may be controlled by and/or implemented on a proxyserver associated with gateway 170, then accesses the entry for employeeJones in the index in database 122. This entry provides the URL at whichVoIP calls to employee Jones are to be directed. The call is thendirected toward the PSTN gateway 170, which is directed to bridge thePSTN call to a VoIP call to employee Jones using the URL, SIPdestination or H.323 alias ID obtained from the database 122. Oneadvantage of this embodiment is that it does not require thecommunication of any employee-specific information (e.g., an email withthe employee's name and destination information) to the calling party.Thus, this embodiment may be used by a calling party that may haveviewed the website or heard a commercial on the radio or TV disclosingthe emergency telephone number. Furthermore, this embodiment may be usedwhen no information of any kind is communicated to the calling party andthe calling party may not even be aware that their call is beingprocessed by the emergency phone system. For example, the company maydirect its regular telephone service provider to re-direct all incomingcalls (e.g., 800 number calls) to the emergency backup system, whichthen re-directs these calls to the employee identified by the callingparty using the IVR. When this technique is used in a call centercontext, the system 100 may optionally direct the call to call to one ofa group of employees who handle such calls (based, for example, on thenature of the inquiry from the calling party as specified by the callerusing the IVR system), or may select an available employee at random,rather than having the calling party identify a particular employee.

While the invention has been described with respect to certain specificembodiments, it will be appreciated that many modifications and changesmay be made by those skilled in the art without departing from thespirit of the invention. For example, any device capable of acting as aVOIP phone may be used in place of the computer equipped with a VOIPsoftware application discussed above. It is intended therefore, by theappended claims to cover all such modifications and changes as fallwithin the true spirit and scope of the invention.

1. A method for providing backup telephone services to members of anenterprise, the method comprising the steps of: receiving availabilityinformation from at least one member of an enterprise in the event thatthe enterprise's regular telephone service becomes unavailable, theavailability information including an identification and destinationinformation associated with the member; based on the information,dynamically updating an index of members reachable using the backuptelephone services, the index comprising the identification anddestination information for each member; distributing the index to acalling party; accepting an incoming call from the calling party; andconnecting the incoming call to the member using the correspondingdestination information.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein thedestination information includes a destination selected from the groupconsisting of a uniform resource locator (URL) associated with themember, a session initiation protocol (SIP) destination, an H.323aliasidentification, and a public switched telephone network (PSTN) telephonenumber associated with the member.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein thedestination information includes a SIP destination and the incoming callis a PSTN call.
 4. The method of claim 2, wherein the destinationinformation includes an H.323 identification and the incoming call is aPSTN call.
 5. The method of claim 2, wherein the destination informationincludes a URL and the incoming call is a VOIP call.
 6. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the destination information is distributed to thecalling party by displaying the index on a web page.
 7. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the destination information is distributed to thecalling party by including the index in an email.
 8. The method of claim7, wherein the email includes a web voice card.
 9. The method of claim7, wherein the email is sent by the member.
 10. The method of claim 1,wherein the availability information is received from the member via awebsite.
 11. The method of claim 10, further comprising the step ofvalidating the member's identity prior to receiving the availabilityinformation.
 12. The method of claim 10, wherein the member's identityis validated by an intranet associated with the enterprise.
 13. Themethod of claim 10, wherein the validating step is performed usingregistration information provided by the enterprise prior to theenterprise's regular telephone service becoming unavailable.
 14. Themethod of claim 13, wherein the registration information includes memberpasswords and usernames.
 15. A method for providing backup telephoneservices to members of an enterprise, the method comprising the stepsof: accepting availability information from at least one member of anenterprise in the event that the enterprise's regular telephone servicebecomes unavailable, the availability information including anidentification and destination information associated with the member,the destination information corresponding to a device capable ofvoice-over-internet-protocol communications; based on the information,dynamically generating an index of members reachable using the backuptelephone services, the index comprising the identification anddestination information for each member and providing the index to acalling party; accepting an incoming call from the calling party; andconnecting the incoming call to the member using the destinationinformation.
 16. A computer readable medium having instructions storedthereon that, when executed by a processor, causes the processor toprovide an emergency backup telephone system for an enterprise, theinstructions comprising: receiving availability information from atleast one member of an enterprise in the event that the enterprise'sregular telephone service becomes unavailable, the availabilityinformation including an identification and destination informationassociated with the member; based on the information, dynamicallyupdating an index of members reachable using the backup telephoneservices, the index comprising the identification and destinationinformation for each member; distributing the index to a calling party;accepting an incoming call from the calling party; and connecting theincoming call to the member using the corresponding destinationinformation.
 17. The computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein thedestination information includes a destination selected from at last oneof: a uniform resource locator (URL) associated with the member, asession initiation protocol (SIP) destination, an H.323 aliasidentification, or a public switched telephone network (PSTN) telephonenumber associated with the member.
 18. The computer readable medium ofclaim 17, wherein the destination information includes a SIP destinationand the incoming call is a PSTN call.
 19. The computer readable mediumof claim 17, wherein the destination information includes an H.323identification and the incoming call is a PSTN call.
 20. The computerreadable medium of claim 17, wherein the destination informationincludes a URL and the incoming call is a VOIP call.
 21. The computerreadable medium of claim 16, wherein the destination information isdistributed to the calling party by displaying the index on a web page.22. The computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the destinationinformation is distributed to the calling party by including the indexin an email.